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Another day, another dollar

This glorious soon-to-be-fifty-three-degrees day started off with a bang - a Pull-Up filled to the brim with the remains of a mostly-broccoli dinner, diaper rash, wet pjs, loose cough, a battle over thumb sucking, two episodes of the Wiggles, negotiations over juice, an admonishment that Daddy is more fun, and a long, clinging, wailing goodbye at daycare. This morning is such a blur that I'm beginning to wonder if, in fact, it's not pregnancy that took the bulk of my short-term memory, but a willful determination on my part to just. not. remember.

I am reading I Don't Know How She Does It for my March Moms book club. I really didn't expect to like it, but as it turns out I'm more or less living it. Guilt, shame, pride, love, ambivalence - the life of the working mother. One quote in particular has stood out:

The way I look at it, women in the City are like first-generation immigrants. You get off the boat, you keep your eyes down, work as hard as you can and do your damnedest to ignore the taunts of ignorant natives who hate you just because you look different and you smell different and because one day you might take their job. And you hope. You know it's probably not going to get that much better in your own lifetime, but just the fact that you occupy the space, the fact that they had to put a Tampax dispenser in the toilet - all that makes it easier for the women who come after you. Years ago, when I was still at school, I read this book about a cathedral by William Golding. It took several generations to build a medieval cathedral, and the men who drew up the plans knew that not their sons but their grandsons, or even great-grandsons, would be around for the crowning of the spire they had dreamed of. It's the same for women in the City, I think: we are the foundation stones. The females who come after us will scarcely give us a second thought, but they will walk on our bones.

Dramatic, yes, and true. Before I became part of this new entity, I took pride in never having missed a day due to my child's illness. Never skipping out early due to "women's issues." Taking six weeks maternity and not a day more. Why? For what? To prove that women are just as tough as men? I had a male boss once whose back pained him in such a manner that he would lie down on the office floor to conduct business - every day. So maybe if I prove that I can stick it out, my own daughter can someday leave early due to raging cramps, guiltless and unashamed; "we can do it too."

posted by krista @ 8:58 AM